Breaking down what the changing commercial business model entails, 40% of respondents identified the increased focus in market access strategies as the biggest change to the business model. Other factors cited as the biggest change to the commercial business model include primary sales force realignment (20%), increased focus on managed care (17%), increased focus on key opinion leaders (11%), and increased use of e-detailing channels (6%).

Beyond the changing commercial model, the Cegedim Dendrite survey found pharma execs anxious about pipeline growth (24%), the impact of regulatory reform (16%), generic competition (16%), cost, capital, and funding issues (3%), and patient involvement (2%).

Survey respondents stated that new product innovation and profitability growth are the most important business objectives in 2010. New product innovation and successful launch was cited by 67% of respondents as the top objective for 2010 and 51% cited profitability growth.

Not surprisingly, most survey respondents view prescribers and patients as their most important primary and secondary customer groups. What may be somewhat surprising, however, is a full 36% of respondents ranked patients as the primary customer over prescribers. Meanwhile, 27% cited managed care organizations as the primary customer and 24% cited government. Cegedim Dendrite analysts anticipate seeing the balance continue to tip away from prescribers as a primary customer toward these other groups.

The survey also sought pharma executives’ opinions on social media. Respondents are aware of and use social media, but it generally does not receive a large appropriation of their marketing budgets. Almost all (97%) of respondents indicate that they use at least one social media site on a daily basis, though whether that is for personal and/or professional use is unclear. The majority (51%) invest less than 5% of their sales and marketing budget in social media channels.

Social media is primarily used for external applications such as marketing and PR but is also used to a lesser extent for internal communications and human resources. Fifty-nine percent of respondents list “marketing” as the top way their company is using social media.

Software as a Service (SaaS) and cloud computing only seem relevant to a relatively small number of respondents. Only 7% cite the technology as “very important”, and 15% cite it as “important.” Many respondents do not appear to understand the topic, with 45% responding “Don’t know” to the question, “How important is SaaS or cloud computing in your sales and marketing initiatives?”

China was cited as the most strategically important BRIC country. Thirty percent of respondents chose China but 27% did not know which country was most strategically important for their company.

In reviewing the results of their survey, Cegedim Dendrite analysts came to the conclusion that the next six months of 2010 will most likely show pharmaceutical companies remaining focused on changing business models and product innovations. And as market growth in China and other BRIC countries has more of an impact on the industry, Cegedim Dendrite analysts expect to see pharmaceutical companies making changes to become more global-minded.

For last year’s promotional medical education feature, I had an opportunity to speak with Ilyssa Levins, president, Center for Communication Compliance about the advantages agencies might find in compliance training and certification. You can read the interview here. CCC offers agency executives and staff regulatory compliance training and certification across five channels: advertising, promotional medical education, public relations, managed care, and core global programming.

Now, a year later, Ms. Levins got back in touch with me to bring me up to date on her organization. The most recent big news is that International Meetings & Science (IMsci), a division of WPP, has become the first and only promotional medical education agency in the United States to certify its entire staff in regulatory compliance. CCC administered the expert-reviewed training and correlated certification testing, which confirms mastery over current, job-relevant, and expert-reviewed content.

“We are fully committed to promotional education compliance and to developing a culture of compliance from top to bottom,” says Barbara Blasso, president, IMsci. “That means training and certifying our employees to reduce legal and financial risk for themselves, as well as their clients, and to clearly differentiate our company in the marketplace.”

CCC had prevously announced certification of the first and only public relations agencies in December 2009, specifically IPG agency Weber Shandwick and Omnicom’s Porter Novelli.

In our conversation yesterday, Ms. Levins expressed surprise that agencies in promotional medical education and public relations are recognizing the importance of regulatory compliance certification while advertising agencies have been slower on the uptake.

“When we spoke at the time of CCC’s launch, we agreed that confirmation of regulatory savvy through a certification test seemed like a no-brainer for agencies (especially given our low price points),” Ms. Levins says. “Yet, despite all the benefits of our coursework, agencies were surprisingly slow back then to make regulatory compliance savvy a requisite for client partnership.”

CCC now trains and certifies in 44 countries in addition to the United States. Diversified Agency Services, a division of Omnicom Group, has committed to train and certify its senior team of integrated global healthcare strategists.

In fact, Rob Dhoble, DAS Healthcare president – who will accept his Manny award tonight as Advertising Person of the Year – has always believed that regulatory compliance training and certification is a strategic investment.

“Our clients expect us to share responsibility for developing communications with a thorough understanding of the complex regulatory environment around the world,” Mr. Dhoble says.

Two of the three ad agency nominees for this year’s Manny for Most Admired Agency – Cline Davis & Mann and Harrison and Star – are investing in CCC regulatory compliance training. Both are DAS network agencies.

Despite this step forward, Ms. Levins is still surprised to get push back from agencies, even with the DOJ/FDA threat of jail time recently reported in the Wall Street Journal.

“True, the economy remains an obstacle as many agencies don’t have budgets for regulatory compliance education (a non-billable expense), but the cost of noncompliance is simply too high to sit back,” Ms. Levins says.

As she sees it, the cost of noncompliance includes:

1. Threat of jail time, conspiracy suits, and disbarment
2. Fines and legal fees for both a company and individuals (from C-Suite executives to middle management)
3. Profitability drains from redoing materials that won’t pass regulatory muster (CCC provides a calculator that lets agencies see for themselves how much redoes cost them)
4. Significant disruption of business and workplace morale when files are subpoenaed
5. Strained relationship between company and agency over compliance
6. Damage to company’s reputation from continued reports of wrongdoing

“True, some agencies have a general compliance training program,” Ms. Levins says. “But in today’s regulatory climate, the question being asked by prosecutors is whether those programs are effective. Just because training is in place does not mean that the company’s employees are qualified. For training programs to be useful, you need a corresponding test that confirms mastery of the information. More importantly, certification tests are negotiating tools when dealing with the government, according to legal and regulatory experts.”

For agency leaders who believe that their current training programs are satisfactory, Ms. Levins challenges them to confirm that belief by asking senior staffers to take one of CCC’s free sampler certification tests. Not only that, but CCC is willing to give a few free pass codes to its full certification tests.

“We are willing to put our money where our mouth is,” Ms. Levins says. “Not because we want to be right, but because we want to help.”

As future business leaders, today’s children are primed to work and collaborate in a real-time, 3D virtual setting. ProtonMedia is laying the groundwork for that future as the developer of ProtoSphere, a virtual social environment in which users’ computer avatars can meet for online teaming and collaboration. ProtonMedia’s customers include such life sciences companies as AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Merck.

Although Ms. Kittrel acknowledged that as of now, interest in the possibilities of virtual collaboration far outstrips actual adoption, as her examples demonstrate, for the next generation of life sciences CEOs, researchers, and sales people, a second life will be second nature.

Microsoft’s Sam Batterman, who goes by the title “business intelligence evangelist,” spoke today about how these virtual collaboration environments function as far more than just the “N” drive on a company’s network. For example, in addition to document and application sharing, ProtoSphere provides the tools teams need to collaborate socially online, including holographic virtual spaces with interactive avatars and bots, VoIP audio conferencing, text chat, presence awareness, video streaming, blogs, wikis, feeds, role-playing simulations, content workflow, and enterprise social networking. For the life sciences industry, Mr.  Batterman suggests uses such as constructing virtual data rooms, a chemistry plaza, or innovation and ideation networks.

The big question is, why do all this in a virtual environment? Why transform the collaboration companies do every day into a massively multiplayer online role-playing corporation? The answer, according to panelist and ProtonMedia CEO Ronald J. Burns, is that in a virtual collaboration environment, it’s not just the charts and graphs and documents housed in the online environment that have value; the avatars themselves have value. The skills and expertise held by the real-world personalities behind the avatars are available and accessible.

But that’s not the only reason, according to panelist Tony O’Driscoll, a professor of the Practice of Business Administration at Duke University. He believes that virtual collaboration online represents the third generation of the Web, the point where the user is enveloped within the content.

The author of Learning in 3D: Adding a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning and Collaboration, Mr. O’Driscoll highlights the value of learning in 3D environments with the equation I x I = E. That is, Interactivity times Immersion equals Engagement. His research has found that bringing people together in virtual learning environments can have a positive impact on the learner’s engagement with the material. According to Mr. O’Driscoll, learning leadership is not only possible in the virtual environment, it’s an ideal venue in which to do so.

In the gaming world, roles change quickly and decisions must be made rapidly, on the fly. Gamers must assimilate numerous sources of input to develop strategies and put plays into action. The gamer must then quickly develop new skills in order to advance through the game. The same principles of learning, advancement, and reward can be transferred to the business world, according to the proponents of virtual 3D collaboration technology.

Before virtual collaborations can gain traction in the business world, however, a critical mass will need to be reached of senior leaders ready to adapt to new technology, according to panelist Tom Kaney, managing partner, MKP Partners.

It may just be a matter of time. Today’s 13-year-old 7^th level mage fighting orcs in Azeroth is tomorrow’s pharmaceutical sales rep or oncology researcher. She’ll be ready to bring the power of virtual collaboration to the workplace, if companies like ProtonMedia don’t succeed in getting there first.

The film is apparently quite inspirational. You too can aspire to one day strike it rich by appearing on a television game show and progressing through an increasingly difficult series of questions relying on your shockingly vast well of arcane trivia knowledge. Or, failing that, you can go on Fear Factor and eat an ox bladder.

But seriously, a little inspiration is a good thing, especially in times like these. And in particular, the success of Slumdog Millionaire has inspired a new awareness campaign by the U.S.-based non-profit pharmaceutical company called The Institute for OneWorld Health. Seeing the film as raising America’s interest in the developing world, OneWorld Health is increasing its efforts to raise awareness about neglected diseases afflicting the world’s poor.

“More than 1 billion people a year suffer from a neglected disease,” says Richard Chin, M.D., OneWorld Health. “Too frequently, it is children who live in rural areas, urban slums, or in conflict zones who die from otherwise preventable and treatable diseases. Films like Slumdog Millionaire are bringing new attention to the lives of the poorest among us and we hope this heightened awareness will move people to act on their behalf.”

OneWorld Health ran a full-page ad in the New York Times on Monday as part of a series of efforts to raise awareness about the need for life-saving medicines in developing countries. OneWorld Health will also unveil online advertising, social media initiatives, and visibility activities in partnership with other global health organizations, and participate in a special forum on philanthropy and global health organized by the United Nations, Committee for Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy, and World Health Organization.

The importance of philanthropy appears to be on the rise industry wide. And it’s certainly not all to do with the success of a particular feel-good movie. In fact, the success of the movie may be attributable to a societal pendulum swing away from me-first consumerism reflected in the politics of the day and that may, in fact, be an outright reaction to the tightened economy.

Corporate philanthropy is one of the most effective tools when trying to turn around negative public perception. In a recent Reuters Blog, Matthew Bishop, one of the authors of “Philanthrocapitalism: How the Rich Can Save the World,” writes: “Bankers keep telling us how sorry they are for getting the world into the current economic mess, but the public doesn’t seem to want to accept their apology. To show they mean it, the rich need to discover philanthrocapitalism and start to give back to society – for their sakes and ours.”

Bankers may be feeling the heat now, but the pharmaceutical industry knows all about that. For too long, the public has turned the cold shoulder, upset over costs, side effects, and aggressive marketing tactics. So called philanthrocapitalism may be the way to go.

In 2008, for example, Abbott’s employee giving in the United States set new company records both in terms of number of participating employees and total dollar contributions, despite the difficult economic times. Nearly 74% of Abbott employees participated in the company’s employee giving programs, up from 65% in 2007. Abbott employees contributed more than $12.6 million to non-profit groups in 2008, surpassing last year’s total of $12.3 million. This figure includes pledges raised through the company’s annual employee giving campaign, donations by employees throughout the year, and matching gifts from the Abbott Fund, the company’s philanthropic foundation.

Abbott’s employee participation is twice the rate typically seen with employee giving campaigns, which generally have 30% to 40% employee participation, according to JK Group Inc. http://www.easymatch.com, an organization that helps administer corporate philanthropic programs for Abbott and many other companies.

Meanwhile, Nobilon, Schering-Plough Corp.’s human vaccine business unit, has formed an agreement with the World Health Organization to provide access to pandemic influenza vaccine manufacturing technology to developing countries. The WHO Global Vaccine Action Plan seeks to expand influenza vaccine manufacturing capacity in developing countries and enhance the global supply for pandemic vaccines.

“The avian influenza virus is already affecting several developing countries, making pandemic influenza vaccine preparedness a global health priority,” says Fred Hassan, chairman and CEO, Schering-Plough. “Our collaboration with the WHO is most important because it is aimed at allowing many developing countries to gain access to proven influenza vaccine manufacturing platforms.”

In a recent op-ed in The Seattle Times

“I have always followed a single principle – walk by faith, not by sight – to guide me and CTI, through both good and tough times,” Dr. Bianco writes. “Those companies with lasting vision and/or noble missions, whether they be Starbucks or Nordstrom, even when they stray, find their way back to enduring success.”

Our February issue of Med Ad News will be hitting desks soon, and in our continuing coverage of our chaotic economy, Senior Editor Joshua Slatko offers up a feature on the new challenges the biotechnology industry faces in drumming up investment. Josh notes that with investors running hard from risk, the traditional high-risk, high-reward profile of most biotech companies is becoming harder to sell. Almost half of public biotechnology companies have less than a year’s worth of cash on hand. As a result, executives have to make tough choices about how to find capital, what projects to focus on, and which employees to keep.

Josh spoke to a number of industry experts, including Ellen Dadisman, managing director, communications, BIO; Diane Romza-Kutz, the chair of the life sciences practice group for Neal Gerber Eisenberg LLP; Richard Blaylock, a biotech partner at the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman; David Collier, a managing director of CMEA Capital, a venture capital company that focuses on life sciences; Rick Williams, chief business officer for the Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences; Ken Aldrich, CEO, International Stem Cell Corp.; John Collar, executive director of the Colorado BioScience Association; and Brent Ahrens, a general partner at Canaan Partners, another venture capital company with a focus on healthcare.

The article concludes on somewhat of a positive note. With large pharmaceutical companies looking to stock their pipelines as a result of the downturn, biotech companies have more partnership opportunities with big pharma than ever before.

The Pfizer/Wyeth deal is not only a milestone on its own merits, but it’s even more important as the opening bell for an historic round of consolidation in the pharma-medical products industry. Past mega-mergers have been about enriched pipelines and market dominance. This deal is about cost-cutting and diversification outside of pharmaceuticals, two factors that will drive the next round of mergers. We’ve seen consolidation and cost-cutting ripple through the industry, but the next wave will be more like a tsunami, not only affecting drug and product developers, but also profoundly impacting vendors, payers, governments, the medical community and even patients.
The desire to diversify outside of pharmaceuticals is especially intriguing. Twenty years ago, companies like Monsanto and P&G wanted to reinvent themselves as pharma companies, while pharma companies (including Pfizer and Wyeth) were in a rush to shed their consumer and “non-core” medical businesses. Today, the big pharma companies believe that the only way to grow is to move into vaccines, biologics, devices, and OTC consumer products. It’s really a stunning reversal from the 80s and 90s when the prescription pill-and-tablet business was king.

Does Wyeth offer any marketing strengths Pfizer might have been lacking?

The biggest unique asset Wyeth brings in sales and marketing is its experience and presence in the marketing and selling of vaccines and biologics. While the R&D and manufacturing assets in these areas are bigger deal drivers, the sales and marketing experience is definitely a major strength. Wyeth markets two blockbusters in these areas, Enbrel and Prevnar, as well as Torisel for renal cell cancer, and the company’s sales and marketing expertise in these areas is of significant value in the evolving “biopharmaceutical” space.

In recent years, Wyeth has been reshaping itself into a major biotechnology player. How might that have influenced Pfizer’s decision to buy?

I think that is the primary driver for the deal. There are a number of other benefits, such as diversification, additional pipeline and increased scale, but I believe the biologics and vaccines are the primary drivers of this deal. The resulting company has the potential to be the pre-eminent biopharmaceutical company, with the scope and scale to put more resources into R&D than any other company in the industry. This gives Pfizer the opportunity to address the market opportunity that biologics and vaccines represent from a position of experience and strength rather than as a relative newcomer. In this sense, I see this acquisition as a very different strategic play than the Warner Lambert or Pharmacia acquisitions, as they served to make Pfizer a bigger player in the game they were already playing. This makes Pfizer a much more significant player in a very different game.

Any other general thoughts you’d like to share?

I believe this deal will be looked back on as a seminal moment in the evolution of what is now the pharmaceutical business to a more diversified “biopharmaceutical” business. The promise of this deal is the scale and presence to leverage technology and research platforms to improve disease prevention and treatment on a very broad global scale as well as (secondarily) to leverage core technologies to pursue complementary business opportunities. The potential for biologics and vaccines is enormous, and it seems as though these technologies could spark a revolution on the order of the small molecule revolution of the 80s and 90s. It is encouraging that what will become the largest company in the industry is well positioned to leverage the latest in science to address unmet needs of major diseases. This deal in some ways sets or at least influences the industry’s agenda, but the scale of R&D of the combined company, with the significant presence in vaccines and biologics, also holds the promise for patients of innovative approaches to disease prevention and treatment. In addition, Pfizer’s return to the consumer products and nutritionals business and the expansion of animal health all signal the growing diversification push that we will see take deeper root on the road ahead.

Over the previous 10 years, we have seen many companies move to divest of “non-core” assets, as several, including Pfizer, sold off consumer product divisions or other non-pharmaceutical assets. Times have changed, and the prevailing thinking seems to be that diversification brings strength, provided there is some leverage of know-how to create synergies. Examples of these synergies include things like bringing approved pharmaceutical products over the counter or into animal health, or leveraging manufacturing expertise in vaccines and biologics into bio-similars. You see examples of this in the execution of GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Abbott, Roche, and others. I believe we will see more diversification going forward – whether it’s vaccines, biologics, bio-similars, diagnostics, devices, consumer goods, or other areas, this is a big step in the transformation of the pharmaceutical industry to the more diversified biopharmaceutical industry. If Pfizer and Wyeth can execute on this merger (and I believe that these companies can), the outcome should be good for the science and especially for the patient.

For the fourth quarter , Pfizer posted reported net income of $266 million, a decline of 90% compared with the prior-year quarter, and reported diluted earnings per share of just 4 cents, a decrease of 90% compared with the prior-year quarter. Fourth-quarter 2008 results were affected by charges to resolve various investigations as well as an increase in pre-tax charges associated with cost-reduction initiatives, which were partially offset by savings from those initiatives.

For the second year in a row, Pfizer reported flat revenue of $48.3 billion in 2008, compared with 2007 full-year revenues of $48.4 billion. The loss of exclusivity of Norvasc, Zyrtec, and Camptosar collectively decreased revenue by $2.6 billion. Poor performance in the United States was a major blow. U.S. reported revenue was $20.4 billion, a decrease of 12% year over year. For full-year 2008, Pfizer posted net income of $8.1 billion, essentially flat compared with the prior year, and reported diluted earnings per share of $1.20, an increase of 3% compared with $1.17. This was primarily attributable to savings associated with cost-reduction initiatives, the 2007 after-tax charges of $1.8 billion related to the decision to exit Exubera, and the favorable impact of foreign exchange.

Analysts with Datamonitor Plc. anticipated that cost-cutting initiatives within a combined Pfizer-Wyeth entity would continue the policy of cost containment that had been already underway at Pfizer. Based on Datamonitor analysis, by 2013, forecast sales for a combined Pfizer-Wyeth entity are anticipated to stand in excess of $54 billion. The merger, however, will not prevent a significant sales decline.

“This deal gives Pfizer scale but will not resolve the company’s negative pharma sales outlook,” says Simon King, pharmaceutical senior analyst, Datamonitor.

Pfizer is one of the pharmaceutical companies expected to be hardest hit by the impending patent cliff of patent expiries between 2008 and 2012 and thus subject to generic incursion. Based on current Datamonitor forecasts, 38.5% of Pfizer’s 2007 prescription pharmaceutical sales will be exposed to expiry threat between 2007 and 2013 prior to the Wyeth acquisition. Post acquisition, it is forecast that 34.7% of Pfizer-Wyeth’s combined 2007 prescription pharmaceutical sales will be exposed to expiry threat between 2007 and 13. As a result, Mr. King believes that shoring up the company’s mature product portfolio is a priority.

“Most significant for Pfizer is obviously the loss of patent protection for Lipitor, which comes off patent in the United States in 2011,” Mr. King says. “Lipitor alone accounted for almost $13 billion in global revenues for Pfizer in 2007; over 28% Pfizer’s total prescription pharmaceutical sales that year.”

With global revenue of $12.7 billion, Lipitor accounted for more than 28% of Pfizer’s total prescription pharmaceutical sales in 2007. Lipitor is due to lose U.S. patent exclusivity in 2011.

The deal also allows Pfizer to diversify its strategic portfolio. “Pfizer’s traditional focus has been on small molecules and the cardiovascular market,” Mr. King says. “This acquisition allows it to greatly improve its presence in the immunology & inflammation and infectious diseases sectors, and also integrate Wyeth’s expertise in the biologic and vaccines markets.”

Pfizer’s strong historical focus on the cardiovascular market will dissipate as a result of the acquisition, Datamonitor analysts say. Meanwhile the areas of immunology & inflammation and infectious diseases will become stronger areas of focus. Prior to the acquisition of Wyeth, Pfizer generated more than 98% of total prescription pharmaceutical sales from small molecule pharmaceutical products, based on forecast 2008 sales. A combined Pfizer-Wyeth entity will generate about 88% of total prescription pharmaceutical sales from small molecules, which Datamonitor analysts say illustrates the immediate impact of Wyeth on Pfizer’s biologics and vaccines exposure.

Prior to the announcement of the Wyeth acquisition, Datamonitor’s prescription pharmaceutical forecasts for Pfizer suggested that the company would have lost its industry-leading position by 2013. By 2013, Roche (inclusive of Genentech), Novartis, Sanofi-Aventis, and GlaxoSmithKline were all forecast to have overtaken Pfizer in terms of global prescription pharmaceutical sales. Factoring in forecast revenue for Wyeth, however, Datamonitor now anticipates that Pfizer-Wyeth will remain the biggest-selling prescription pharmaceutical company by 2013.

Pfizer and Wyeth’s joint press release announcing the impending acquisition is filled with the usual heady words about synergy, efficiency, and global reach. Not mentioned in the release (but most certainly mentioned in the New York Times article) was a very interesting point – that Pfizer has agreed to pay a spectacular breakup fee of $4.5 billion if the deal should fall through under certain circumstances, such as a downgrading of the company’s credit that would disrupt financing.

The New York Times authors suggest that this represents a nod towards the state of the economy and bank financing at the moment. But Pfizer has had no trouble finding financing so far, with Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase all lined up to help out. One suspects, therefore, that Pfizer’s $4.5 billion promise represents exactly what it appears to represent to those of us less schooled in the ways of high finance: a company that has gotten to the point of gambling with the milk money just to keep afloat.

Pfizer’s old friend Peter Rost agrees. “Jeff Kindler needs to continue to buy every pharma company in the business, to fuel the stock markets expectations of continued growth,” Mr. Rost writes in his own blog. “The day he stops he is out of a job … After all, all Jeff needs to do is to continue to buy time, make sure Pfizer doesn’t sink. He’s not hunting Wyeth to build a great new empire. He’s doing it to stay afloat when he loses 25% of his sales when Lipitor goes down the tube. And when that happens, he’ll go out and shop for another big company. Maybe Glaxo.”

In their joint press release, Pfizer and Wyeth’s leaders point out that, “The new company will have more resources to invest in research and development than any other biopharmaceutical company and access to all leading scientific technology platforms, including vaccines, small and large molecules, nutritionals, and consumer products.” No doubt. But there is another side to the story. In an interview for that February 2007 Med Ad News article, Dr. Patricia Danzon, a Wharton professor who has studied pharmaceutical mergers, told me that the promise of increased research and development productivity in pharma megamergers has been checked significantly by the difficulty of coordinating larger and larger research and development organizations. “The benefits of size and scale seem to be offset by the difficulty of managing and motivating these very large research teams,” she said. “The idea of economies of scale in research and development has not panned out.”

So what does the future hold for Pfizer? I have no idea. But based on past history and at least some present projections, it’s a pretty good bet what the future holds for many Wyeth employees, both in science and marketing: unemployment. According to one analyst quoted on Bloomberg.com, Pfizer would need to cut 70% of Wyeth’s research, marketing, and administrative costs to produce growth once Lipitor’s patent expires in 2011. The company is already getting a head start; Bloomberg is reporting plans to cut 15% of the newly-merged entity’s headcount and close five factories. Small wonder that employees of both companies are feeling nervous – and even a little rebellious.